January 2013 Archives

There's a fine line between art and graffiti. But for now, at least, the painted gnomes that have popped up around town in Oakland, California, have squeaked by on the "art" side of the line.

Original Banksy's they are not, but the gnomes -- more than 2,000 of them -- are appearing on utility poles in several Oakland neighborhoods. The depictions of a cute, chubby gnome with blue clothes, a red hat, a white beard, and brown shoes are painted onto 6-inch blocks of wood and then screwed into place.

Wynand Mullins has a great sense of humor and he's a fan of the movie "The Princess Bride." So he purchased himself a cute t-shirt with a popular quote from the movie. As luck would have it, he wore the shirt on a plane bound for New Zealand.

Fans of the movie, or friends of fans, will recognize the quote: "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." It's a great shirt, but not so great on a plane.

Mullins knew people would give him sideways glances if they didn't get the reference. But he probably didn't expect the shirt would cause as much trouble as it did.

Firstly, the movie version of Bilbo got a much worse deal than the one in the book. The contract on the screen in Peter Jackson's newest film looks much longer than the one described in J.R.R. Tolkien's original novel.

But whether it's long or short, the real question for legal enthusiasts is: Is the contract binding? Well, if Bilbo had a lawyer he might never have had to take the risk of going out the door.

Instead of doing his work himself, Bob hired someone in China to do his work at one-fifth of his salary. Then, he took it easy, using his free time at "work" to update his Facebook account and watch cat videos online, an investigation revealed.

His plan even worked for a while until someone started checking the VPN logs.

Nirenberg, 27, of Brooklyn, New York, left his iPhone 4 in a cab on New Year's Eve, and the person who found it didn't turn out to be a Good Samaritan. But Nirenberg realized the thief was using the phone when he got alerts from OKCupid, an online dating service, about messages he knew he hadn't sent.

Realizing that the thief was using his iPhone's OKCupid app, Nirenberg created a trap. How, you may ask? In a word: seduction.

The break-in happened Dec. 29, and Robinson posted the video to Reddit on Jan. 2 under the title "Watch my house getting robbed." By the next day, police had arrested one suspect and the next day another young man was cuffed for the crime.

Shortly after the post went up, two people tipped off police officers that 18-year-old Jacob Cox-Brown may have been involved in a hit-and-run accident, according to TechCrunch. So they went to his house to investigate.